Praxis: A Writing Center Journal • Vol. 23, No. 2 (2026)

Rejected: Unspoken Controversies, Hyper-revision, and the Hidden Costs of Publication in Writing Center/Studies 

Genie Nicole Giaimo
Hofstra University
genie.n.giaimo@hofstra.edu

Sam Turner
The University of Texas at Austin
turnersam@utexas.edu

Publishing, a mainstay in academic disciplines, is not a neutral or uncomplicated practice. For many scholars, publishing can be a herculean task made more complex by reviewer feedback and hyper-revision. Many articles have been written about the complexities and intersecting challenges in academic publishing, from plagiarism controversies (Awasthi, 2019), to how exploratory and creative research is inhibited by the metrics and standards of well ranked journals (Agafonow et al., 2024), and the citational inequities and bibliographic biases that drive impact factor scales. Gender, racial, linguistic, and geographic bias, as many studies have shown, is rampant in academic publishing (Drieschová, 2020; Conklin & Sing, 2022; Lee et al., 2021; Thien, 2023). In writing center studies, Alexandria Lockett (2019) aptly identifies the taxes placed on Black graduate students, which includes a writing tax that impedes production and publishing. In 2017, Elisabeth Buck found that writing center researchers yearned for more digital and open access publication platforms as these offer greater idea dissemination, including outside of the United States.    

This special issue of Praxis explores the publishing, revision, feedback, and writing experiences of practitioners in writing center studies and the broader discipline of writing and rhetoric. Contributors like Shewonda Leger and Rabail Qayyum explore autoethnographic experiences with writing and publishing, while Bob Barnett, Jacob Blumner, James Schirmer, and Stephanie Roach outline an approach to writing and publishing as “relationship-rich” collaborative practice. Joseph Cheatle, Ronada Dominique, Waed Hasan and Sarah Rewega, and Candis Bond, Elisabeth Buck, and Elizabeth Culatta share empirical research on the state of journal publishing in our field. Several contributors–including Andrea Efthymiou and the editors of this issue–write about experiencing hyper-revision and being repeatedly rejected by journals in the field. 

It is no secret that many of us have experienced significant barriers to publishing in writing center studies and the broader field of composition and rhetoric. Some of this might have to do with writing center research struggling to gain traction in composition journals, and it may also have to do with the preferences, feedback, and training of reviewers or even journal editors. This special issue had two interrelated goals: to publish pieces that give in-depth insight into the challenges of the publication process in our field–especially for those of us who are working in contingent and non-tenure track positions–and giving a venue to submissions that have been previously peer reviewed but were rejected by other journals. All submissions went through a mentorship-based peer reviewed process; we did not sacrifice quality in the process but led with humanity and the goal of bringing all submissions to press.

Publishing in our field frequently relies on free labor performed by editors, reviewers and authors. While tenure track and tenured colleagues benefit from the academic currency of the publication process, many do this work for free and outside of their job duties. The majority of writing center practitioners occupy contingent non-TT positions (Herb et al., 2023). So, while we appreciate the material conditions of publication work–and want to extend our gratitude to those who have joined editorial teams or review boards and worked for little-to-no compensation performing time-consuming and intricate work–we also want to recognize the profound amount of labor that bringing a single article to publication requires for authors. For those without institutional support or those, like Erin Jensen, who work with undergraduate students to co-publish, this work is even more complex and time consuming. We ought to make the publication process–particularly the review process–more transparent, ethical, and streamlined to honor the labor of all those involved in this work.     

In other fields, as well as our own, publication practices are changing. Open-access publishing is becoming commonplace–over the last few years, for example, two of the major journals in writing center studies became open access, joining the other two journals. Journals are publishing standards for inclusive review work and, also, citational practices. Journal review-and-editorial boards are expanding to include underrepresented scholars. Editors and reviewers are being paid for their labor. Reviewers are required to identify themselves rather than a double-blind process. Professional associations and journals are creating mentorship programs and models to help bring authors to publication. In writing center studies–and the broader field of Composition and Rhetoric, we have seen some of these changes while others–like an open-review process or paid review work–remain elusive. 

Genie N. Giaimo, Hofstra University, Special Issue Guest Editor 

Sam Turner, University of Texas-Austin & Praxis Co-Managing Editor 

References

Agafonow, Alejandro, and Marybel Perez. “When an A is not an A in Academic Research, or How A-Journal List Metrics Inhibit Exploratory Behaviour In Academia.” Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, vol. 36, no. 1, 2024, pp. 105–121.

Awasthi, Shipra. “Plagiarism and Academic Misconduct: A Systematic Review.” DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, vol. 39, no. 2, 2019, pp. 94–100. 

Buck, Elisabeth H. “Conversations with Writing Center Scholars on the Status of Publication in the Twenty-First Century.” Open-Access, Multimodality, and Writing Center Studies. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2017, pp. 93–110.

Conklin, Michael, and Satvir Singh. “Triple-blind review as a solution to gender bias in academic publishing, a theoretical approach.” Studies in Higher Education, vol. 47, no. 12, 2022, pp. 2487–2496.

Drieschová, Alena. “Failure, Persistence, Luck and Bias in Academic Publishing.” New Perspectives, vol. 28, no. 2, 2020, pp. 145–149.

Herb, Maggie M., Liliana M. Naydan and Clint Gardner. “Contingency and Its Intersections in Writing Centers: An Introduction.” The Writing Center Journal, vol. 41, no. 1, 2023. 

Lee, Sohui, Julie Prebel, and Elizabeth Kleinfeld. “Rethinking Publishing In Writing Center Studies: Imagining an Anti-Racist, Decolonial, Anti-Ableist Publishing Model.” International Writing Center Association. Virtual Conference. October 20-23, 2021.

Lockett, Alexandria. “Why I call it the Academic Ghetto: A Critical Examination of Race, Place, and Writing Centers.” Praxis: A Writing Center Journal, vol. 16, no. 2, 2019. 

Thien, Nguyen Hoang. “Reducing the Risk of Bias in Academic Publishing.” European Science Editing, vol. 49, 2023, e90942.